Never conflate
money and love
The one hates the other
when push comes to shove
Never confuse
false pander for care
The almighty dollar
— unable to share
(The New Room: September, 2026)
Plus Or Minus
Is it a strength
or a weakness
not to know
when it’s over
Is it positive
or negative
the result
— zero sum
(Dreamsleep: July, 2026)
Divinity’s Harvest
The mills of God
grind slowly
The grist of
— Heaven’s delight
(Dreamsleep: July, 2026)
Springing Forth
Leaving the last
of our verses unfinished
With lines unwritten
for others to plead
A poem of hope
springs forth from the shadows
Where statements are doubted
— and wonder believed
(Dreamsleep: July, 2026)
Waiting For The Wind
Sails
unhoisted
Folded
they wait
For wind
to unfurl them
As horizons
— conflate
(Dreamsleep: July, 2026)
Rushing Past
Placing
a period on time
And a stop sign
on creation
We dally in place
— spitting into the wind
(Dreamsleep: July, 2026)
New Voices
Itinerant
air
Sacred in its
wandering
Searching for
new voices
Divorced
— from the wind
(Mariahan Memories: July, 2026)
Why & Where
We are here
who knows why
And we go
— who knows whither
(Dreamsleep: July, 2026)
Not only don’t I have one
But nobody else I know
Has an A.I. buddy, or, at least,
Will say that it is so.
I read a lengthy article
About these so-called “friends,”
Which scared me since it doesn’t seem
That these are simply trends.
Creators justify their use
To fill so many needs –
Companionship, approval,
Affirmation, all the seeds
Which we used to plant and nurture
With a living, breathing soul,
When actual relationships
Appeared to be the goal.
The future looms in ways to which
I can’t at all relate,
When real and artificial beings
Manage to conflate.
I’m glad that I won’t be around
When what we can expect
Is that everyone will need
Such a companion to connect.
clusters tend to blind the eyes
overwhelm and hypnotise
I appreciate how that occurs
temporarily reality blurs
daisies fade and daisies wilt
though Earth remains on its same tilt
constant vase sometimes contains bliss
I'm temporal and aware of this
I watch as time demonstrates this fate
there is no sense asking time to wait
nor comfort in letting time past conflate
with our present or future state
each burst of joy that bloomed in view
was gift in moment and threat in lieu
yet yin and yang cannot accrue
and balance is the resting hue
I'm temporal in the schemes and storms
constants are not truthful forms
though Earth remains it can't contain
daisies if there are no rains
temporarily we pause or rush
I appreciate calm in the hush
overwhelm there taught to rest
clusters tended will manifest
In dreams, I’m where the music plays.
I’m listening to the laughter, like it’s in another room.
My drink is dark, bitter and oaky tasting
and the peanuts taste like soap.
There aren’t any napkins.
Others are lines of light and shadow.
I feel an anxiety that I gnaw on,
like a dog works a bone.
My dream’s conflating memories.
Suddenly Lisa’s there,
she comes up from behind,
“Aww, your tag is sticking out,” she says,
but before she can fix it,
I hear tower bells.
It’s my alarm.
.
.
Webster: Conflate: “to blend or bring together.”
MELIORISM
This world stings like the scorpion,
And I will not filter in her tears,
This I said because I’m a champion,
Only throwing jabs, it really wears!
Like the faeces of a chameleon,
She stinks in her odourless sheers,
Truly this world bites in oblivion.
And never to be seen in klaipeda _
The elysian sky has deceived me,
Leaving behind their propaganda;
This dark ominous mangles me...
The tenet of retronym in obscurity,
Why we can walk without security.
The quell for fairness may wither,
As we skulk in together!
The gargoyle mole of pains...
Hardship is loose and unfettered;
As we wallow in this sane oneiric,
That never sought for the kindred,
Of conflate moth of harangue...
The axiomatic mild of the youths,
The automatic bunkum in heroism,
The cosplay to this hilarious pains,
The syringe to my bitter whinge.
To saudade for the shadows of life,
A vain wait for meliorism!
When will it get back bitterly better?
Written: November 13, 2023
____________________________________________
The exhausted soul's speech is faint.
In response to the voice of dream.
When faith lends its way to conflate
The exhausted soul's speech is faint.
Where the bloom faded with berate
lack of mind and frame as soul screams
The exhausted soul's speech is faint.
In response to the voice of dream.
Written: November 05, 2023
________________________________________
Amidst spotless linen rosebuds
I observe you blazing a fire
In the core of a volcano's lair
slithering
glissading
laughing
Queen of the Sun,
Queen of Earth
angels shielding you with their wings
to quench one's thirst
for my vital breath.
A warm deluge of your embrace,
sets my skin into full bloom-
a mellifluous anemone aroma,
and marigold of whimsey bloom
wandering to my cynosure edge
the scorching primeval route;
you leave lush roots for our offspring
to nurture demesne orchards.
On the sands of your sunken tracks,
where conflate ponds
xerox the gleam of fire;
and trees widen limbs,
to embosom
sapphire sky for spring
and descry a year's cornucopia,
of succulent, velvety fruit.
In languish sleep, so went her fate
through loveless marriage, mired in hate.
Soft-spoken words that now chastise
his world, of stranger’s scents and spies;
gold, traded for some silverplate.
Just once forbidden fruit she ate
her endless strangled passions sate
she made this bed on which she lies
in languish sleep.
Suspicions she dared not set straight
this is a world she did create;
where every little word implies;
one now where she averts her eyes
and lives where love and guilt conflate
in languish sleep.
The writer always
wants to sing
And the singer
wants to paint
The painter fancies
he could dance
To the dancer
songs conflate
The greenest grass
it seldom grows
Where you now
make your bed
As wishes stray
and hopes betray
What might have been
—instead
(Dreamsleep: June, 2023)
Almond promises
round oval drops
dripping song to fall
in neon light
His stares of hope
conflate when she comes
your everyday Cleopatra
cascades lofty
Acorn kisses
hanker sweet footsteps to be
on time
mystique on the commonest day
burrowed deep in the recesses
A mob of crows conflate a raucous debates
with sweet songs.
They gather
on the broken branches of Autumn,
they fill the leafless spaces
that now are only naked windows
for a colorless sky.
An ad hoc hectoring
of dark and light notes shakes a cold wind -
a song sheet for the fallen and failing.
If you watch and listen
to that black-winged rabble
all will turn into the glossy iridescence
of ethereal harp music
played solo upon the few twigs left
within these stark woods.
SHAPES
so playful
&
revelatory
yet
& strange
captivating
meticulous
& exquisite
full
of
conceived
emotion
a stunning
series
of radiants
striations
dotted here
& there
with a
sense
of
the evocative
ambiguity
to
evoke
an
array
of
the
subtle
to
conflate
&exquisitely
condense
the
understatement
back &forth
in
a
rectilinear
seam
of nothingness
in
a
visual diary
of
yesterdays
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Copyright © Brian Strand
‘Forever’ drops through the cracks of time.
The everlasting is a way of saying never-lasting.
We had to change its meaning
for the sake of the children
for those who need nursery rhymes,
and the nursery rhymes are too deep
for the children to comprehend.
The ‘children’ are ancient, ageless,
they live on
in the collective unconsciousness.
So we make-up words that mean
the opposite of their true meaning.
'Love' for instance,
love does not mean love something
or anything. Love objectified
outside of you is a mirage.
If you add forever to the word ‘love’
you conflate an idea with a reality.
When you have something to give,
then you can give.
Without this self-loving
you have nothing to offer.
You can only truly love yourself.
Without this understanding
love becomes for-never.
Some say words are powerful
yes and no –
for unless you know the root of a word
you will not know the truth of a word.
While volcanoes rehearse to show their teeth
lovers shouting from the well of the house
wave broken condoms rather than broken trust
conflate dissent on self-erasing slates
and prove worse than the old oxen
long following circuitous ways
billowing opposition, discalced defenders
they all assert superior dishonesty
sell cheap what is most dear or make
offences of new affections
I carry the tomb of unburied days
--R K Singh
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